Sylius eCommerce Framework vs. Monolithic Software

Many digital start-ups face the same challenge at the very beginning of their adventure - deciding whether to buy an existing solution or to build a customised software that will fit their exact needs and give more control over the behaviour. The first solution is definitely cheaper and it often makes sense to experiment and launch the product as soon as possible, but off-shelf software can quickly become a bottleneck.

As a founder, you need software that will support your business at the stage of testing your idea. However, at this stage you will experience growth and need a product that can adapt and be customised according to your needs. In the start-up environment change is constant, and you don’t want to lock yourself into the way a specific software product is designed.

Using Open Source Software

Building a custom solution on top of an Open Source product is a compromise. However, mainstream solutions are rarely developer-friendly. Big and monolithic software usually works for standard business models and operations, but not for a business wanting to innovate.

Most existing platforms are meant only for the standard B2C experience. When your business needs to provide unique service and value to your customers, it must be customizable to the desired user experience. Hacks, workarounds and installing tons of plugins will harm the stability of the software and add increased Technical Debt, which may slowly kill your business. What is the solution?

eCommerce Framework

Sylius is a new approach to eCommerce development. It provides a standard B2C interface and administration panel, which in reality are only thin layers added to the system core. There are multiple ways of using Sylius as a foundation for your custom software:

Customize the look and feel of the default shop and admin interface

Build your own interface from scratch, but reuse all the business logic

Starting from scratch is never a good idea. Generic web development frameworks will save you time and money, and you do not need to face the same problems over and over again. Sylius does exactly the same thing, but for eCommerce application development.

Why would you implement the same taxes and shipping logic for each application that needs it? Yes, other shop solutions have it too, but can you easily replace their tax calculation logic or copy it and use it somewhere else? Sylius is based on the best PHP framework - Symfony, which is loved by developers and allows for unparalleled flexibility and productivity.

To learn more about Sylius and to get the latest news about development and new releases, visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Paweł has built his entire professional career on top of open source software. As the founder of the ecommerce platform Sylius and the company Lakion, Paweł is a highly sought-after speaker with extensive knowledge of Behaviour Driven Development, and a quirky sense of humour. Paweł also has a blog.